All We Are
by qwerty24
Summary: "Aaron and Emily were two parts of a whole, like jagged fragments that sometimes fit together imperfectly." H/P story of discovery and healing told in pieces.
1. Chapter 1

She doesn't know it, but he still remembers her as a bright-eyed teenager from his days working for her mother – the way she looked like she could do anything with the world. But Aaron remembers that even then, there was a shadow too, an unspoken anguish that sometimes consumed her young frame, and shook him too, drawing him into her when his mind knew it was wrong. Even then, he thought, maybe subconsciously, that the jagged pieces of the two of them might actually fit together.

He never considers it, never dares to think that Emily might have returned anything in the way memories of him. But she remembers him, the sharp set of his jaw, his dark, piercing eyes. How he watched her from across the room, and how his intensity scared her sometimes. She thought about Aaron Hotchner, but of course, she couldn't have known any of it then.

Aaron hears about Emily occasionally through conversations with old colleagues and banter at the Bureau. She studied at Yale and graduated at the top of her class. _I always knew she was smart, _he thinks, and he can see her again, brunette, pale skin, bold eyes.

When she walks through his door that day, Aaron is momentarily struck by some element she brings into the room with her. It's beyond beauty or charisma, and he is almost certain that she cannot possibly be the Emily Prentiss who often invades his thoughts. _She's your former employer's daughter, for God's sake, _he tells himself. What he doesn't know is that she is thinking, _it's like nothing changed._

He is reluctant at first, suspicious, and as much as it bothers her, he has every right to be. She knows how politics can corrode at the soul, and how this work is not just skin and bones but part of a tangled mess of strategy and ladder climbing. Emily wants none of that. She wants to bring whatever peace or justice she can in the wake of tragedy. _I want to give what I couldn't have, _she tells herself, and sometimes, her hand goes to rest on her lower stomach, a phantom pulse beneath her fingertips.

Emily would sacrifice for him. She would sacrifice almost anything, maybe everything. She would drop the job she's worked so hard to get to restore whatever false equilibrium Aaron thought he had before. She would leave, rather than become one of Strauss's pawns in her game of politics because she has moral rules, but also because it would hurt Aaron. And she could never do that.

During that next case, when Aaron sees the crimson stains on Emily's shirt, and the blood that runs in rivulets down her face, the panic that rises in him catches him off guard. Out in the field and at the Bureau, he is Hotch, the Unit Chief, and he needs to keep his head clear so that he can do his job. _It's the job that matters. Emily's fine. Emily's always fine._

They fall into each other. They are colleagues. Profilers who are part of the team. But they are also Hotch and Prentiss, Emily and Aaron. He feels it, like he did so many years ago. Back then, it was the boundaries of work and age that held him back. Now, he is a married man, with a young son at home. _There is nothing here, _he says to himself. But when she looks at him, it is like there is an ocean beneath her eyes.

Emily knows what it like to be afraid. Some nights she will wake up in a cold sweat, the taste of him fresh on her lips. It's not Aaron. It's _Ian. _And he is always there, just beneath the surface, poisoning her blood. That's why, when she watches Aaron and Haley unravel, she is not surprised. It's not that love is capricious. It's life.

Years later, he will still feel like he has failed her when he thinks back to the cult in La Plata, Colorado. He can still hear her screams, the sound of boot on bone, the cracking of a rib. Failure is not the only emotion that consumes him. Anger, too rushes through his veins. _Cyrus, that son of a bitch, I'd kill him in a heartbeat. _He knows he is in trouble, because that is what Emily could do to him. Make him into a killer. With her, there are no limits.

She has always thought of him as Aaron. Even though "Hotch" is what falls from her lips, or the occasional aggravatingly insubordinate "Sir," he has always been Aaron to her, because he has always been, first and foremost, human. He is fallible, and so is she, maybe more so than most, so there is no reason for him to be anything other than Aaron, all imperfections and jagged edges.

When they fall into each other, they fall violently, without direction, without guidance. It has been like that since the beginning, but the rawness of it all is almost exciting, instead of frightening. There is too much death, too many serial killers. He works almost exclusively with her in the field. She purposely sits with him on all of their long plane rides. He protects her, but never enough. _The greatest dangers, after all, are inside us._

When Rossi approaches him after the unusual case with the priest and Emily's murdered friend and asks him to _take care of her, _he wonders, for the first time, if maybe, they can heal each other. She knows that there are pieces of him that are missing. Some days, she thinks _I can make you whole. _Other days, she thinks _make me whole again._

Broken cannot begin to describe Aaron after the Reaper. Foyet took everything, destroyed everything. But Aaron also knows that you cannot lose things that never belonged to you in the first place. You cannot lose things, if you are the lost one.

Emily can never forget the cloying smell of blood on his clothes. _This is how close I came to losing you. _There is never enough time for healing. There is never enough room for solace. When it comes, when Foyet kills Haley, and almost kills Jack, there are no words, only the echoing space formed by the sound of a single gunshot, the bloodied skin of Aaron's knuckles, the corpse of his child's mother, and the fetid decay of a monster.

He needs her the most now, but there is only so much she can give. There is a vastness behind her eyes, but she can only offer so little to Aaron. The demons claw within her, tearing at flesh, so that when Aaron hurts, she is the one who bleeds.

Emily talks to Clyde Easter more often than she would like, but there is a trauma to the correspondence that she cannot remove herself from. Doyle is always there, but she must remind herself that it is fiction. _Lauren Reynolds is dead. _Only Clyde knows everything, can understand her fear, her shame, her pain. She remembers what he said to her, _Your body and your mind are not the same. It's a game, and you need to win._

But it is not a game. Aaron and the team can tell that something is preying on her. She sees eyes watching her where there are none. She is always sleep deprived, on edge, the shadow of her past racing towards her from behind, until it will engulf her. They are both so damaged. Their souls are riddled with scars.

Maybe this is why, the first time it happens, it is violent in a way that verges on madness. They return home late on a Saturday night after a case in Indiana. There is no true victory, never really, when there is meaningless death, meaningless pain. Jack is with Jessica, and both Aaron and Emily know they are returning to empty shells of homes.

They are still never sure how Emily ends up in his bed beneath him that night. All she knows is that she _needs this so badly _and that she wants him to go harder, faster, so that the physical sting can numb out the pain inside her that is so many times worse. All he knows is that Emily _feels so good, _and that he wants to make all of her his, wants her to rake her nails down his back, scream _Aaron _into his mouth as her back arches beneath him. They both know: _you fit me perfectly._

Before it can even begin to be wrong. Before Aaron can get a chance to corner her somewhere and tell her _it can't happen again, _she is gone. Doyle has finally caught up with her. Tsia is dead. Sean is dead. There is no use in being afraid any longer. _I'm sorry, _she thinks, but she is not sure if she is apologizing to Aaron, or to herself.

Danger is pervasive in their current and past occupations. Death is a hazard in the same way that a chef worries about dirtying his apron. The real possibility of death is not what angers Aaron. Perhaps it is petty, unprofessional, contaminated by the experiences of a single night: He is angry when he imagines Emily with Doyle, moaning and crying out beneath him, giving herself to a terrorist the same way she gave herself to him. _I want you to be mine. I want you to come home._

In those last moments of lucidity in the ambulance, before the darkness brought sweet, sweet sleep, Emily sees Aaron. It will always be Derek, good, brave Derek who found her. But it was Aaron who saved her. _It's going to be okay, _she hears, but maybe Aaron is not there, maybe he is not saying these things to her. Maybe she just needs him too much.

When he sees Emily in Bethesda after the second surgery to repair internal hemorrhaging around her heart tissue, he realizes that he could have lost her. He might still lose her if he doesn't think carefully, or plan her protection logically and systematically like he should as her Unit Chief. But this is Emily, his Emily. _Nothing is too much to keep her safe_, but he wonders if it is for his own selfish reasons, because without her, he is weak.

Recovery is painful. Emily knows pain like she knows darkness, her most frequent lovers. The pain is not always meaningful, the brand on her chest reminding her of her shame, of how she has been marred. _Ugliness consumes me, _she whispers to him one day, when he comes to visit her. Secretly, she wants him to tell her that she is beautiful. Instead, he says, _I love you._

He loves her so much that when he watches the plane that is carrying her to Paris disappear between the milky clouds, he almost loses himself again. The tears are salty, and he would have waited there a lifetime for her to come back to him, but he has Jack, he has the team. He has her, too in the spaces of memories, in the safe haven of the past.

The first few nights in Paris, when she wakes up in cold sweats, her heart threatening to leap right out of her chest, she thinks of how he made her his own the night before she left. She remembers the strong plane of his chest, the moans pressed into her skin, the kisses he left on the raised, white and misshapen brand above her left breast. _I wish we'd found each other sooner, _he whispers in the labored breathing afterwards, and it is so quiet, she is not sure if it was meant for her ears.

These are the ways they fix each other, restore each other. They were both injured beyond imagination. And the only true safety lies in the ways they can heal each other. They are never whole, but on good days, they are almost.


	2. Chapter 2

There are some nights when Emily's absence consumes him. The pain is acute, burning deep in the hollow of his chest, in the empty spaces around him that she filled, in the silence that threatens to expend him. Aaron worries about her. He remembers all too well the sanguine bag of clothing that the doctor in the ER handed him, the _if I don't make it through the night_ that he silenced on Emily's lips when he visited her in the ICU that first night. _You are all I have left, _he thinks, but she is already so far away.

In Paris, Emily realizes that her life has become a game of deception. She dreams of peeling back the layers of her skin, of taking off her masks: Lauren Reynolds, profiler Prentiss, compartmentalizing Emily, those new identities folded up neatly in a manila envelope. And by the time she has peeled all of the layers back, chipped at away at the remains of her dishonesty, she realizes that there is nothing left underneath, that she is nameless, faceless, an empty shell of a human being with nowhere left to run.

Aaron almost succumbs to the pain at her funeral. He knows that Emily is not in the casket, and he wills himself to imagine her halfway across the ocean, tucked safely in Paris where she is resting, healing. But the experience is too raw, the memory of watching her flat line in the OR too fresh, so that he cannot help but think as they lower the empty box into the ground, _this is how close I came to burying you. _Ashes to ashes, dust to dust – and it takes everything in him to picture her bright eyes, rosy skin, _I need you so badly, Emily. I need you to come home._

Emily cannot look at herself in the mirror. The sharp, clawing pain of the first few weeks has left her, but a constant ache like a wound that she keeps opening has seeped into her flesh, into her bones, into her soul. The scars that Doyle left on her body are still tender, the brand on her chest still raised and milky white. _I am disfigured, _she thinks, and even though she remembers the devotion with which he loved her the night before she left, Emily cannot help but wonder if she _will ever be good enough for him, if he will ever want me again._

This is how much they hurt. This is the anguish that wracks their bodies and their hearts. Aaron loses himself in his work, committing himself to the vacuum of paperwork and bureaucracy that helps him to forget, if only for a moment. Emily lies awake at night, because that is the only remedy for her bad dreams, and counts the ways that she could make it home to him again. _You filled an emptiness inside me, without you, I am hollow._

The manila envelope that JJ left her held the documents she needed to escape, but it also contained the last anchor she had to her past. A little yellow slip of paper ripped off the corner of a legal pad with a phone number written on it in what she immediately recognizes as Aaron's precise hand. The number goes to a secure phone which reroutes to Aaron's cell with end-to-end encryption, and she knows that it is meant only for an emergency. But she wants, _needs _him so badly that she feels the physical ache in the cavity of her chest. _Is this enough of an emergency?_

When he sees the unfamiliar, redacted number on his phone late on a Sunday night, he knows that it is Emily. Panic and bile rise in his throat, and his fingers shake as a he goes to pick up the call. Has she been hurt? Has Doyle finally caught up to her? But a selfish longing fills him too, just to hear her voice again, to know that even though she is so far away, he can have this little piece of her near. When he hears the strangled, _Aaron?, _at the other end of phone, his only thought is, _I would have waited forever just for this._

Emily knows before she even dials the number into the disposable cell that this is wrong. She knows that she is putting herself, and him in danger, but like an addict, there is no reason to her actions anymore, a desperation drives her, and she cannot stop until she has him again. _Emily, is everything okay?, _he asks her in that deep, soothing voice with only an edge of uncontrolled concern, and she answers immediately, just to ease his fears, _Of course, everything's fine. I know I shouldn't have, but I just wanted to talk to you. It's been so long. _What she really wants to say, but doesn't, is, _No, nothing's okay, I miss you so much I might die without you._

That night, after talking to Emily about everything and nothing, he cannot get her out of his head. Her voice is like rich velvet that soothes his tired mind, and it is easier to see her now, easier to imagine that she is just a few steps away, her warm skin just beyond his reach. When he touches himself that night, he can feel her heat enveloping him, almost taste her sweet spiciness on his tongue. What he doesn't know is that Emily, an ocean away, is imagining too, that he is between her thighs, that he is the one inside of her, filling her, and when they unravel, they are both thinking _I almost forgot what is was like to be with you._

Shadows lurk everywhere in the apartment that has cream walls and French windows with drawn blinds where Emily spends most of her time. The fear bubbles up inside her periodically and she reaches for the gun at her waist, turning the safety off, putting her finger on the trigger, aiming wildly at a target that does not exist. She sees him everywhere, dark, sunken eyes, hears his cadenced accent taunting her from every direction. There is no one here to protect her, nobody to turn to, _this is what I have become: afraid, always._

At times, the agony that torments him is unexpectedly violent. He sees Doyle, that worthless, sly son of bitch who killed and terrorized innocent people, who claimed Emily in his dirty sheets, who hurt her, who marked her. The anger is white hot, flashing before his eyes like a lightning bolt, so that when he comes to his senses, his fists are clenched so tightly that the crescents of his fingernails nearly draw blood. _That fucker, _Aaron thinks, _I would hurt you the same way you hurt Emily. I would laugh as I watched you bleed out. She means more to me than you could ever know._

Emily finds that she can slowly begin to live again. The darkness still draws her in dutifully, wrapping its tendrils around her throat, closing off her air as she struggles to breathe, but most days, she sees the sun rise, and remembers what it was like in the safety of Aaron's arms. She knows now that they were both damaged beyond repair, but when he sends her photos of Jack playing soccer, knowingly putting his only family in danger if anyone were to see the photos, she feels the sutures beginning to burrow deeper into her skin, closing off the wounds for good. Occasionally they reopen, and Emily bleeds, but _there is a place for me, there is a home for me where you are._

They don't talk often, because sometimes it is easier to pretend. But when they do, their cravings for one another become more and more acute, their desire becoming a priority. There's no real way to describe it, phone sex seems too casual, too scandalous, although they are doing it over the Bureau's encryption service. But it's more than just _getting off. _They need each other in a way that goes beyond words, so that when she shatters, he is there with her, falling with her, and they know, _you and I could rescue each other._

She never tells him about everything that happened with Doyle. There are parts that she will take to the grave, some moments that she will carry on her own forever, that were never meant for anyone else. How years after the sting operation, she would wake up at night and think that Ian was next to her in bed. How, for two sickening weeks, she thought she might be pregnant, and the cold relief that swept over her when she realized she wasn't. How, at night, between the sheets, she didn't need to pretend for Ian, how he told her that he was bringing her closer to God. _He ruined me for any other man, he ruined me for you._

Without Emily, the team feels lost. Aaron had never really thought about how much she meant to the rest of them because he had been depleted by his own sense of ruin. First JJ, now Emily. He needs to focus on the job, on the serial killers and the victims and all of the bloody, sorry death. But his vision has been tainted, not from the loss, but from what Emily has given him, what she has restored in him. Now, the pale, fetid and bloated body is somebody's daughter, somebody's father, somebody's wife or husband. She has colored his world a different shade, has changed him irreversibly. But Aaron is bitter, _how could you do this to me and then leave me? I need you to teach me again._

Their souls and their hearts harden during this time apart. They become stronger, more resilient, but they also become more brittle, more breakable. _We're going to catch that bastard, Emily, I promise. We're going to bring you home. _But her murmured answer, _I know. Be careful, _carries the weight of a thousand regrets, and the distance is still so agonizing, the scars only beginning to form over the open cuts. _I wish I could have saved you sooner._

**Thank you so much for reading! I really appreciated all of your reviews on the last chapter! I hope you enjoyed this one. Thanks again!**


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